Iceland

Can an entire country have a flavor? 

Rainbows / Seaweed

We're coming up on the one year anniversary of a historic victory for gay rights. But then again, we are all still reeling from the mass murder in Orlando.

When I re-read a favorite poem recently, thinking about those lost in Orlando, I just sat and wept into my Norton Anthology.

Pollen Count

As I'm coming up on the one year anniversary of incorporating Curio Spice Company, I've been reflecting on one of the questions I've been asked a lot: "how did you get into this?" Sometimes I answer with a story about a poem I wrote in college about the saffron crocus (an esoteric beginning to a spice business), other times about farming.  But a recent study of bees and bee pollen made me realize this simple fact: I like to collect tasty things and bring them home to share.

There are other species besides humans and honeybees who collect. Male bowerbirds build elaborate nests and collect piles of objects of similar colors to attract their mate. Leaf cutter ants have entire societies built around the duties of cutting and collecting leaves for the ant colony. Collecting behavior ranges from the need for food storage to attracting mates to well, in my case, collecting spices because they make me feel alive.

A Beautiful Mess

I had a dream last night that I wandered into an open field. It was bright green and looked out over a lake. I sat down in the tall grass and put my head on my knees.

It's a strong contrast with where I sit right now at my messy desk with piles of papers and a half eaten banana, a cup of coffee I had to heat up in the microwave. When I finish my desk work I will head into the commercial kitchen (home of Curio manufacturing) which is in an industrial area of Somerville; the one window in the kitchen looks out over a car junkyard, smashed up sedans whose airbags have deployed; a spooky stillness hovering amidst the glinting metal.

Help with the Refugee Crisis in the Aegean

Blue water, black sand, fragrant thyme. Octopus cooked on a grill, eaten only with salt and lemon. The inspiration for one of the Curio Spice blends, Aegean Salt made with Chios mastic, lemon and thyme, came from the clean, bright flavors I tasted while traveling through the Greek Islands in 2010.

View from Samos, 2010

Homemade Chai

One afternoon when I was in college I stopped by our local natural foods store to see if they carried that chai that comes in the waxed cardboard box. The kind that you could just pour into a mug and microwave. It was Lent and in an uncustomary move I decided to give up coffee. I wasn't a coffee snob at that point - I drank the pumpkin and hazelnut flavored stuff - but I depended on that heart thrumming rush to get me through late nights of writing essays about Emily Dickinson.

New England Ginger

There's something deeply meditative about visiting a farm, but especially come late November in New England. Mid-afternoon brings sunset, covering the landscape in gold light; blue shadows nestle around the few kales and mustards still growing. Most farms are breathing a sigh of relief after the busy market season, when the fields are overflowing and farmers hustle to get it all harvested, processed, and sold. There's a lovely hush to late November in New England—a lullaby of frosts that signal it's time to put the farm to bed. We gather for Thanksgiving: eat till our bellies are over-full, then drink tea, maybe with a splash of bourbon and a dash of ginger; go to bed early.

Elixir of Life: Homemade Chartreuse

Right before the first frost hit last weekend, I went out to my tiny porch and "harvested" all of the herbs I'd been growing in window boxes. 

From Scratch: Pumpkin Cake & Silk Gowns

It was a cold day in early December when my mom and I entered our first bridal boutique. A woman greeted us wearing six inch heels, tight black trousers and a silver slinky blouse. She led us around the quiet store that was lined with gowns glittering in the afternoon light. Soon I found myself undressing next to this high-heeled woman and then climbing into a gown whose price tag had a lot of numbers on it. Stepping out of the dressing room, my mother smiled and I stared curiously at myself in the mirror thinking about the idea of summer. It wasn't even Christmas yet and I was trying on dresses that'd I'd need to wear six months later. Dresses, plural, that would become dress, singular, that I'd wear for just one day.

Walking down the street afterwards we discussed the pros and cons of the various styles, the outfit of the sales woman (those heels! and she was already tall!) the beads, the silk, the lace. I mentioned the idea of finding a cup of coffee. What if I made your dress? My mom said.

Horseradish for Sweetness

"The radish is worth its weight in lead, the beet its weight in silver, the horseradish its weight in gold." As Apollo reported from the Delphic oracle, found in Waverly Root's book Food, 1903

Last Wednesday, on a brief 24 hour visit to my parents house in Maine, I realized that August is truly the hour of harvest - at least in Maine, where wild blueberries coat the fields in sweetness, and vegetables beg to be brought inside and eaten.